Shooting Challenge: 18 Gorgeous Pet Photos

Giz readers evidently love cats as much as they love dogs – and DSLRs! This week’s shooting challenge results are up and include a nice variety of portrait-style and action shots.

Nick Roffey

I walked into the back room today to find our puppy Chloe (left) snuggling up to Maddy (right), most likely to reclaim the bone Maddy stole. Best Friends. Luckily I had my camera handy and was able to capture the moment.
Shot with a Canon 550D, EF-S18-55 Lens, f3.5 at 1/20 ISO 200

Alan Bentley

This is a picture taken of my two pet birds. Zeke on the left and Lucy on the right. Zeke, normally gets the rounds of the cage from Lucy and you could really say he was “henpecked”. I was trying to capture Zeke cowering under the “claw” of Lucy, but, for this one moment, Zeke turned the tables and fought back. (I am sure he paid dearly for this, later :))
This “lucky” shot has enabled me to prove my “bad boy” Zeke is not a total wuss.

The picture was taken using a Sony A33 with a standard 18-55 kit lens.
The camera was set to automatic with flash used to even the lighting.

Leila Frijat

This was when I first got my cat Alfie and he was a baby. He used to just sit on the rock and meow until someone brought him in. This photo was taken with a Canon Power Shot SX200 IS. (I’m sorry but I don’t know the lens!!!)

Well this is my cat. And that is what distortion is. Anyone else’s cat’s head that big?

Mark Allen

This pic was taken on my old Olympus mju waterproof camera on automatic settings. My dog Hank was flopped down on the floor next to me so I just sat the camera on the ground in front of him and snapped a few pics. He is watching birds outside on the deck probably sulking because he can’t chase them. I was really surprised at how well this pic came out for an old pocket point and shoot on no specific mode or focus. This was the best of 4 I took (the only one of I’m looking away).

William Hunter

My 3yr old Golden Retriever ‘Jake’. He deserved a little cooling down period from the lawn sprinklers after a long hot day playing with family, kids and other dogs all day. And being so excited by water, he loved it!

This was one of my first shots using my Canon 60d with 18-55mm kit lens. ISO 200 f2.4 at 1/50s.

A fortuitous moment where both cat and sun were in line and staying relatively still. I took maybe 20 shots before getting this one as he’d turn away whenever I’d take the shot, damn fluffy bastard. Marcel the subject in question is usually flitting around the yard chasing after mice, bugs and moths. I think he must have thought he was going to get something special when this shot was taken.

The shot was taken with my old Nikkor-H 85mm lens attached to a $5 Nikkor to EF lens adaptor on my ailing EOS 300D, set on Shutter Priority. Gotta love short depth of field.

Paul Hussey

My dog Gracie waiting for her owner, after a long day of most likely sleeping on the couch. Taken with a Canon 550, f/4.5 at 1/60s, ISO-2500.

Michael Pieniazek

Canon 10D

Canon 90-300mm F4.5-5.6
F5.6 1/750 ISO 400

I was playing with my cat in the garden and i noticed that the lighting conditions were perfect shooting, so i got out my camera an got a few nice shots

Lee Hadassin

This Is my miniature Daschund ‘Slinky’ waking up from a lazy friday arvo nap on my bed.
She actually has a ramp I built for her so she doesn’t have to jump up on the bed! What a life she lives.
I used my iPhone 4 with the Pro HDR app without a tripod.
Left Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Warmth and Tint as the default the app suggested.
Reduced the size using photoshop (bicubic sampling).

My dog loves her sleep and waking her up for a picture is quite hard, anyway here it is.

Ashley Wong

This shot was taken with Olympus e-30 on a 14-54mm II f2.8-3.5 lens with flash gun FL36 attached.

Focal length: 54mm
ISO: 100
Aperture: 3.5
Pet name: Crusty

Took my dog out for grooming and walked all the way back home. He was exhausted after the long walk. I love taking shots of him while he’s almost sleepy (less movements!)
I bounced the flash off the ceilings of my room to get a good light up considering my room was pretty dark even with natural lights.

Felicity Kiernan

I got a new camera on the weekend and was so busy playing with it that I was easily able to ignore my cat Snufkin’s constant demands for food. He has clearly decided here that life is tragic and his fate is obviously to starve. Not to worry, he got his dinner in good time.

This was taken on a canon EOS 550D at f1.8 (50mm prime lens), 1/50s, ISO 3200

Harry Smiles

My whippet Jessie playing with our friends ridge-back cross Gus, and its really is just playing. Jessie used to be a very shy and timid dog until he met Gus, whenever Gus wanted to play he would cower behind me with his tail between his legs. He has now turned into a bit of a psycho when they play, they never draw blood of hurt each other, but the noises coming from them make you think they want to kill each other. I took this my Pentax k-r with 18-55 DAL lens, f10 at 1/3200s and ISO 3200 with continuous shooting at 6fps.

Damion Desoto

After unpacking the flat-pack bookshelves, and unpacking boxes of books to put on them, there were cardboard boxes scattered everywhere through the room. Atlas, being a curious cat, decided to inspect them all. I though I’d missed the earlier photo opportunity of him in a box, but soon enough he jumped back in again and this time I was ready.

To finally get myself on Gizmodo, I set out to grab a few shots of our dog’s adorable 7 week old puppies.
Photographing pets and children is always a challenge and the puppies definitely didn’t disappoint. In the end I chose this one out of the lot as it was something a little different.
It’s (sort of) easy to get a nice shot when they’re just staring doe-eyed back at you, but this one was just a little more fun.
I also figured it could be a good base as an internet meme. I’ll let you think up your own captions…

I shot this with a 7D and 24-105mm Canon L Lens at F4.0, 1/50th and ISO6400.
The ISO is a little higher than I’d normally accept, but there wasn’t too much light to play with and I needed a reasonable shutter speed to keep up!

There wasn’t much sun in Sydney on the weekend but when it finally came out on Sunday I was aiming to take a photo of the cat for the challenge but he had fortified himself under the bed. When I tried to move him I’m pertty sure I got the cat equivalent of a middle finger, so I turned to Sam the dog. I’d been wanting to get a shot of him rolling over for a while, but getting him to do it on queue is the real challenge. I was laying on the ground about 2m from him saying ‘roll-over’ about a hundred times when he finally did it this once (admittedly with 3 legs rolling over isn’t easy for him). All subsequant attempts were met with a half bark and the dog running over and attempting to lick the camera, so this one would have to do!

Luca Prodigo

Like every day when i come home, i find my sweetie “red head” on my bed! I think she feel her self kind a diva, because every time she enjoy to sourprise me in a different position for be photographed, and this time….well, i think she belived to be a kind of sphinx ! Proud, beautiful and big sphinx! In this picture seem so so so serious, but in true…is sooooo sweet! I love u Krilù 🙂

I used a canon camera eos 450d, with a 50 mm lens with iso 100 , f 1.8, at 1/10 sec.

About the Author

Elly wields the subediting whip over the team and makes the most of her current base in Canada to bring readers their morning news fix. A self-described Android fangirl and information junkie, Elly was a Best Investigative Writer finalist in the 2011 Consensus IT Writers Awards and won Best Reviewer in the 2011 Microsoft IT Journalism Awards.